Talk:Trilemma

Economic trilemmas

The one listed as a trilemma in software economics isn't really a software economics issue. It's more of a management problem encapsulated in something Arthur C. Clarke once wrote: "Fast, cheap, good. You can have any two you want." And that problem applies to basically any job I've ever tried to get done.

Apologetic trilemma

The article says,

The trilemma, usually in Lewis' formulation, is often used in works of popular apologetics, although it is almost completely absent from discussions about the status of Jesus by professional theologians and biblical scholars.

This is doubtful and I'm not sure how the cited article is relevant. I've quickly skimmed it (it's available here if anyone wants to check it out: https://philarchive.org/archive/HOWWJM-2 ) and it's possible that I missed something but I don't see anything in that article suggesting that this trilemma is "almost completely absent from discussions about the status of Jesus by professional theologians and biblical scholars".

How do we even quantify "almost completely absent"? I'm sure it comes up less than other topics, but it does come up. Even Bart Ehrman, the most famous bible scholar, has commented on it. Here's something from his blog: https://ehrmanblog.org/the-problem-with-liar-lunatic-or-lord-for-members/ I don't know if he's written any academic papers on it or anything, but we can't say he hasn't discussed it. Also, there's the bible scholar Brant Pitre. He uses the "Lord Liar Lunatic Legend" quadrilemma variant in order to set up his Case for Jesus.

Also, I don't know if the implication was intentional or not, but it sounds almost like it's saying that apologetics is a less serious discipline than theology or biblical studies, or that we ought not to take the trilemma seriously on that account. But there's a pretty obvious reason why Lewis's trilemma is used by apologists and not discussed nearly as much by theologians and bible scholars: it's because each of these three disciplines has its own goals. The goal of apologetics is to give reasons and evidence in defense of the faith--at the very least, to show that the faith is not unreasonable. So a big part of the goal is to establish reasons for believing that Jesus is God. Lewis's trilemma tries to do that, and is fairly persuasive, so we'd expect to see it used a lot within the field of apologetics. Theology and biblical studies, on the other hand, are sciences. Christian theologians presuppose that Jesus is God and they seek to derive further knowledge about God; while biblical scholars may nor may not believe that Jesus is God but their goal is to make sense of the biblical text. Neither theology nor biblical studies is really trying to establish Jesus's divinity or convince anyone of anything, so the trilemma is not too relevant to either of these two disciplines. (If anything, the trilemma would probably be of more interest to the philosophy of religion.) 2601:49:8400:26B:1921:3F36:9E7D:CACA (talk) 18:48, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Two trilemmas

fascinating article, I base my own rejection of theism in part on this, and the Zionist trilemma is such a brilliant and powerful rebuttal to the litany of hasbara put out by the Occupation.

Also, the trilemma about causation in Nagarjuna is perplexing and deserves a bit more discussion, like why a cause can't precede its effect. ~2026-31486-63 (talk) 22:37, 26 May 2026 (UTC)